Calories In Food Calculator

What is a Calorie?

A calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. The calories in food are really kilo calories or 1000 calories. When we say that a carbohydrate like sugar has 4 calories per gram, we really mean that it has 4 kilo calories per gram. This means that one gram of sugar has enough energy to raise the temperature of 1000 grams of water by 4 degrees Celsius. The calories in food provide a measure of the energy content of the food.

Determining the Calories in Food
Once you know how many calories you need to achieve your target weight, you have to figure out how many calories are in the food that you eat. The following table shows the calories of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and alcohol. Fiber consists of carbohydrates that are not digestible and can be subtracted from the amount of total carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates

4 Calories per gram

Proteins

4 Calories per gram

Fats

9 Calories per gram

Alcohol

7 Calories per gram

Since most foods consist of complex mixtures of the basic food components, you will need to interpret nutrition labels to determine the calories in packaged foods, and you will need five basic tools:

Food Scale

Measuring Cup

List of foods and calories per gram

Calculator

A journal to record everything that you eat

Establish a baseline

If you are not used to dieting and measuring food, the best way to start is to just eat normally for about one week, but weigh and measure everything that you eat or drink. This will establish a baseline of your normal eating habits and your ad libitum caloric intake.

As an example, let us say that you would like to eat some sunflower seeds. The nutrition label says that one serving consists of one ounce or 28 grams, and that the one-pound package has 16 servings. This 28-gram serving has 190 calories. Grab a handful containing all the sunflower seeds that you are going to eat, and before eating a single kernel, weigh them. Suppose that they weigh 30 grams. You know that there are 190 calories in 28 grams, so you calculate: